An honest gathering of information and useful stuff about running and fitness that I find along my journey to become a fitter person.

L2M Ultra is getting closer and closer EEEKKK

Well as you can guess from the title the Race/ Run ( let’s call it a run as I am not in it for the fastest time finishing, only that I finish at all.) is getting closer. Last night the race organisers posted some pictures of them testing out the start and finish equipment. This made my hairs stand on end. My wife set off to go into town this morning to collect the train tickets from the train station. She has already booked my hotel room for the day. While “researching” on the net with a coffee I decided to click my countdown clock and it said 48 days i automatically signed and began thinking that isn’t too close at all. Then a small voice in my head told me to “hit refresh” on the page and BOOM it immediately went to 38 days. FOOK A DUCK 10 days less in the blink of an eye.

I have been training, I am following the plan and even taking days off like it says, but I can’t shake the smell of DOOM that is coming my way. Hell I even add more miles than it says to do ( sometimes not a lot but i still do ). Last weeks training I decided to include some Big hard hills into my routes to build up the legs so on Monday I rested, Tuesday I ran 4miles, Weds 12miles, Thursday 12miles. Friday was a rest day, Saturday I ran 25miles and Sunday I ran 12miles. On some of the days I have had to really push myself out the door and really had to push myself around the route I have picked. I find myself discussing how friggin hard it will be to run the remaining miles if today was “THAT” day. Ofcourse I Know it isn’t and I try to tell myself that on that day I will be trained, rested and fuelled up on all the excitement of the day, but that still doesn’t help now. I have always suffered from race nerves and to be honest it is tiring lol. There are many days were I just want to jack it all in and do something less “meh”. I know that this is daft and that I should trust the training I have done and the miles I have put on my legs/ mind. Easier said than done isn’t it. You see I suffer from depression and it doesn’t take a lot to make me feel like a failure/ waste of space. And to be honest placing myself in a position of failure at my hand is a big bloody step. At the moment I haven’t failed at running so I am pushing forward with it. I have cut down the amount of events I doing to just 3 this year and one of those I am about to DNS. After this first race ( L2M) I will focus on “me running” running the miles I want and the distance I want for the fun of it. I do like the race day buzz, but think for me it comes at too high a price for my nerves/ heart. Yes I know some out there will be thinking ” stfu Dave, just get on with it yah big soft wimp”, but for some this is an issue and I know I am not alone. Anyway I am itching closer and closer to the day/ event and once it is started and we are all running all these feelings will dissolve ( famous last words, but they have on all the other races) away. I wanted to share these thoughts I am having as like i said I wanted to get them out and share so anyone else feeling them can see you are not along.

I shall continue with the training, I shall continue sitting here on a rest day thinking my legs can no longer run, I shall continue running 20miles and then thinking “can I really run another 27miles now, I don’t think so ” and I am not fit enough to do this thing. and come the day I shall pack my gear, kiss the wife N kids and get on a train to Liverpool and then wait for the morning to come. Sometimes we have to put ourselves in a position of impending failure to prove we still can do something right. Maybe that is the reason I am doing this to myself. Who knows but life will go on and I will run another day.

Well that was a hogwash of a post that clearly should have remained in my head, but fook it, my blog, my thoughts, my post and technically it is about running. I know this isn’t going to win me any fans or new blog followers and my street cred is going to be ruined as I am showing weakness but Meh.